A wide variety of measurement devices may be arranged into separate subsystems that interact with one another via a measurement interface. For example, a wide variety of measurement devices, smart sensors, data acquisition systems, etc., may be arranged into a front-end subsystem and a back-end subsystem that communicate via a well-defined measurement interface. A measurement interface may be said to be well-defined if it provides a structure and protocol that enables a relatively independent design and deployment of the measurement device subsystems.
One example of a well-defined measurement interface is one defined in the IEEE 1451.2 standard. The IEEE 1451.2 standard provides a measurement interface between a front-end subsystem (STIM) and a back-end subsystem (NCAP) of a measurement device. The IEEE 1451.2 standard sets forth a structure and protocol that enables an STIM to advertise to an NCAP an arrangement of measurement channels, measurement units, and speed and accuracy parameters using a transducer electronic data sheet (TEDS).
The IEEE 1451.2 standard provides a relatively fixed allocation of responsibilities among an STIM and an NCAP. The responsibilities of an STIM may include generating raw data, e.g. via sensors, applying stimuli, e.g. via actuators, performing signal conditioning, sample and hold and buffering functions, digital-analog conversion, etc. The responsibilities of an NCAP may include converting raw data obtained from an STIM to engineering quantities, analyzing and transforming data, detecting alarms, etc.
A relatively fixed allocation of responsibilities among the front-end and back-end subsystems of a measurement device may limit the ability of designers to add more elaborate measurement functionality to a measurement device without imposing a significant increase in the complexity of the front-end subsystem of the measurement device. Unfortunately, an increase in the complexity of a front-end subsystem of a measurement device may increase development time and the overall cost a measurement device.